KANYANG, Nigeria — Former bushmeat hunter Jacob Osang says poverty and lack of options drove him to the trade. “There were no jobs, no opportunity anywhere,” Osang says. In 1985,…
DJOUM, Cameroon — “This right there used to be hell.” It’s early February 2019, deep in the tropical rainforest in southeastern Cameroon, the day after a night of heavy downpour.…
GOMBE, Tanzania — On the eastern shores of Lake Tanganyika, 16 kilometers (10 miles) north of the town of Kigoma in Tanzania, lies the green, dense forest of Gombe National…
Chimpanzees' health is not just an issue of concern for conservationists or animal rights activists. Great apes can spread plagues of biblical proportions — the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) first…
While scientists worked to confirm Tapanuli orangutans were a distinct species, pressure was mounting on the apes' habitat.
Geneticists, morphologists and behavioral scientists reveal the inside story of how their research led to the description of the Tapanuli orangutan.
Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo will reopen its gates to tourists on Feb. 15 after officials closed them more than eight months ago. A spate…
Imagine traipsing through a forest, growing thirsty, and stumbling on a small pool of water in the knot of a log. How would you drink it? If you had a…
BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — A recent seizure of two young orangutans from households in Indonesia has once again highlighted the lack of legal consequences for people who keep the near-extinct…
BUTATONG, Nigeria — Until mid-2017, smallholder farmer Anthony Okwo was suspicious of the conservationists who visited his village of Butatong in southeastern Nigeria’s Cross River state. The village, where most…
A recent survey of wildlife rangers at a national park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) found that most aren’t happy with their jobs. Faced with low pay, little…
The illicit great ape trade involves a fusion of brutality and financial sophistication. Unlike most forms of wildlife trafficking, where animals are killed on the spot, the trafficking of great…
You probably use it every day and don’t think once about gorillas. In today’s world, it’s almost impossible to get by without a mobile phone, but they’re wreaking havoc for…
“It was very peculiar,” says Anne Russon, a primatologist and psychology professor from York University, Toronto, recalling her 2010 study of orangutans in Indonesia's Kutai National Park. Having previously worked…
Social anthropologist Liana Chua leads a project, POKOK, that aims to reduce the killing of orangutans in Indonesian Borneo through deeper engagement with local people. The project came about as…
The recent plunge in numbers of Grauer's gorillas in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has lopped off one-fifth of the subspecies’ genetic diversity, leaving it potentially vulnerable to…
Entebbe, Uganda — At the Uganda Wildlife Conservation Education Center in Entebbe, a steady stream of school buses drops off hundreds of children from across eastern Uganda. The center, located…
December 1978 A year into an 18-month research project on the critically endangered mountain gorilla in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, Amy Vedder and Bill Weber, newlywed graduate students from the…
A Christmas advertisement deemed too political to air in the U.K. but that has been viewed more than 70 million times online has rekindled the debate about how to save…
COPPERBELT, Zambia — Thirty-five years ago, a game ranger in Zambia confiscated a baby chimpanzee from poachers who had smuggled it from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It was…
